1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to machines for treating crop material, such as forage harvesters which chop crop material into small pieces, and, more particularly, is concerned with means for converting a crop material delivering means, such as a windrow pickup, mounted on the machine between field and transport positions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A crop material treating or harvesting machine, such as a forage harvester, combine or the like, commonly utilizes a crop delivering means, such as a conventional crop material pickup, which is mounted on the front of the machine and extend laterally beyond one or both sides of the machine in order that a swath of crop material, substantially wider than the machine, may be delivered by the means from the field to the machine. However, utilization of the aforementioned type of pickup presents difficulties when it is desired to transport such machine along public or other roads, over narrow bridges and through narrow field gates between harvesting operations.
Several methods have been employed to convert the delivering means prior to machine transport to within the narrower machine width and thus avoid difficulties during the transporting of such machine.
One method found in the prior art has been to pivotally couple the one portion of the delivering means which extends laterally beyond a side of the machine to one end of the remaining portion of the delivering means disposed within the lateral sides of the machine and then pivotally fold the one portion toward the remaining portion, such as illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,224,970.
Another method found in the prior art, generally similar to the one method mentioned above, has been to mount each of a pair of delivering means on a pivot pin which extends axially in the general direction of machine travel and is mounted to frame parts of the machine and then pivotally move each delivering means about its pivot pin, such as illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,258,901, 3,345,808, 3,478,499, 3,503,190, 3,540,195 and 3,683,601.
While the aforementioned prior art methods appear to satisfactorily avoid the difficulties associated with the transporting of such machine, it is noted that these respective methods contemplate supporting the delivering means on the machine both at the field and transport positions and during its pivotal movement between these positions by generally the same member which also pivotally couples the delivering means to the machine and is located at the pivotal axis of the delivering means. It is believed that, under most circumstances, a delivering means so supported and pivotally coupled on the machine, and ordinarily having a substantial weight, continuously focuses and imposes undesirably high, excessive bearing loads on the axially-located supporting and coupling member and on the structural portions of the delivering means immediately adjacent thereto which has a tendency to eventually result in bending or cracking and thus failure of such structural portions unless relatively complex, heavy duty and expensive structural reinforcement is provided.